Rereading American masculinities: re-visions of the American myth of self-made manhood in Richard Ford’s fiction

Instituto de la Mujer (España

To Be or Not To Be (a Man): Is That the Question? Men and/in Feminist Literary Criticism

[Abstract] While the question of men and/in feminism has long been subject to different (and often opposed) views and opinions, the more specific issue of men in feminist literary criticism remains largely unexplored. Nevertheless, the question of men in feminism is not exactly the same as the question of men in feminist literary criticism. As Toril Moi indicates, “while the latter is an interesting and relevant problem in its own right, it is strange, to say the least, not to find a single discussion of the difference between these two questions.” This paper thus sets out to address the particular subject of men and/in feminist literary criticism. While acknowledging the diversities within –and disagreements between– male and female feminisms, it posits that men can and should get involved in feminist literary theory, arguing that (female) feminism could be widened and enriched by new male feminist critical perspectives

The Sex or the Death of the Author? Rethinking the Relevance of “Maleness” to (Feminist) Literature and Literary Criticism

[Abstract] The relevance/irrelevance of the sex of the author to textual analysis remains one of the most controversial debates within contemporary literary theory, in general, and feminist literary criticism, in particular. On the one hand, the relevance of knowledge about the author to knowledge about the text has been diminished repeatedly in the twentieth century by formalist, Marxist, and poststructuralist scholarship. On the other hand, other (feminist) scholars have insisted that the sex of the author cannot be ignored, as it helps account for the text’s content and/or style. After presenting the two sides of the argument, the paper highlights some of the dangers of “de-gendering” literature, showing the relevance of the sex of the author to textual criticism. Nevertheless, it argues that it is neither possible nor desirable to lump all (male) writers into one single category, as male fiction is far from static and monolithic, constituting a varied, changing, complex and often contradictory (fictional) gender construct. The paper thus concludes underlining the feminist potential of a number of male-authored texts, ranging from Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa to Henry James’s The Bostonians, among others

Stochastic integrals and wong-zakai theorems

Treballs Finals de Grau de Matemàtiques, Facultat de Matemàtiques, Universitat de Barcelona, Any: 2019, Director: Carles Rovira Escofet[en] We start by characterizing Brownian motion and giving its main properties, and then we focus on studying Itô’s and Stratonovich’s integral. We take special interest in comparing both perspectives and proving Wong-Zakai theorems, which connect stochastic and deterministic behaviour. Finally, it is also presented a brief introduction to stochastic differential equations, demonstrating a result for the existence and uniqueness of solutions

Searching for grapevine fungal trunk pathogens on cover crop roots

The potential role of cover crops as alternative hosts for soil-borne fungi plant diseases has not been thoroughly explored. Root samples from cover crops from experimental plots in the CORE Organic Cofund BIOVINE project has been analysed to find out more

Focus EMU, January 13, 1987

The drivers of global change, such as increasing drought and nutrient deposition, are affecting soils and their microbial communities in many different habitats, but how these factors interact remains unclear. Quercus ilex and Pinus sylvestris are two important tree species in Mediterranean montane areas that respond differently to drought, which may be associated with the soils in which they grow. We measured soil respiration and physiologically profiled microbial communities to test the impact of drought and subsequent recovery on soil function and diversity for these two species. We also tested whether the addition of nitrogen and phosphorus modified these effects. Drought was the stronger driver of changes to the soil communities, decreasing diversity (Shannon index), and evenness for both species and decreasing soil respiration for Q. ilex when N was added. Soil respiration for P. sylvestris during the drought period was positively affected by N addition but was not affected by water stress. P addition during the drought period did not affect soil respiration for either tree species but did interact with soil-water content to affect community evenness for P. sylvestris. The two species also differed following the recovery from drought. Soil respiration for Q. ilex recovered fully after the drought treatment ended but decreased for P. sylvestris, whereas the soil community was more resilient for P. sylvestris than Q. ilex. Nutrient addition did not affect respiration or community composition or diversity during the recovery period. Soil respiration was generally weakly positively correlated with soil diversity. We demonstrate that short-term water stress and nutrient addition can have variable effects on the soil communities associated with different tree species and that the compositions of the communities can become uncoupled from soil respiration. Overall, we show that drought may be a stronger driver of changes to soil communities than nitrogen or phosphorus deposition

Characterization of Cadophora luteo-olivacea and C. melinii isolates obtained from grapevines and environmental samples from grapevine nurseries in Spain

[EN] Fifty-eight Cadophora luteo-olivacea and three C. melinii isolates were recovered from grapevines showing black vascular streaking and decline symptoms characteristic of Petri disease, and from different stages of the grapevine nursery process in Spain. The isolates were studied by means of phenotypical characterization, DNA analysis and pathogenicity tests. The morphological characters studied included conidiophore, phialide and conidial morphology. Colony characters and pigment production on MEA, PDA and OA were also examined. Phenotypical data were subjected to cluster analysis, which clearly separated C. luteo-olivacea isolates into four groups. Mating tests were performed on all possible combinations for each Cadophora species but no sexual fruiting bodies were produced. Partial sequences of the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS), beta-tubulin (BT) and the elongation factor 1¿ (EF) were analysed, but no genetic variation occurred within the C. luteo-olivacea isolates or within the C. melinii isolates in any of the regions studied. Pathogenicity tests were conducted on 1-year-old grapevine cuttings of four different rootstocks using four C. luteo-olivacea isolates and one isolate of C. melinii. All Cadophora isolates except the C. melinii isolate caused significantly longer lesions in the xylem of grapevine rootstocks than in the controls.This research was financially supported by the Projects AGL2006-11884-C04-01 (Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain), RTA2007-00023-C04-03 and RTA2010-00009-C03-03 (Programa Nacional de Recursos y Tecnologías Agrarias, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain), and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). We thank V. Garrigues for technical assistance.Gramaje, D.; Mostert, L.; Armengol Fortí, J. (2011). Characterization of Cadophora luteo-olivacea and C. melinii isolates obtained from grapevines and environmental samples from grapevine nurseries in Spain. Phytopathologia Mediterranea. 50(Supplement):112-126. https://doi.org/10.14601/Phytopathol_Mediterr-8723S11212650Supplemen